A group of 24 middle school students from Chengdu, China visiting the Cariboo as part of a cultural exchange had a lot of fun believes the Superintendent of School District 27.
Mark Wintjes says the students arrived on a snowy February 3 after flying from Vancouver to Prince George and then taking a bus into Williams Lake.
“Although we experienced a lot of snow they haven’t seen it before and it was really fun watching them interact with the snow. But in particular, interacting with the students here in the District,” he says.
“I think it went really well. There were expressions from them that they wanted to come back, and expressions from some that they didn’t even want to leave.”
Wintjes says they will they will be working now with the schools in Chengdu as well as another city in China to possibly get summer camps going.
The students who were based at Lake City Secondary spending their mornings at the Colmneetza campus, and then within the community during the afternoons departed from Williams Lake on Tuesday.
The program was according to Wintjes was initiated by their new Director of Instruction, Dean Coder who happened to have a significant international student experience.
“I have some contacts in China,” said Coder.
“So when I heard that there was some interest we talked with teachers at Columneetza a little bit. The interest here is to bring in different cultures in the schools so students in our schools here in Williams Lake and hopefully in other schools can experience what it’s like to live in other countries.”
“Our hopes and intents are not this spring break, but a year from now there would be a teacher, administrator, and some kids being able to go back and visit Chengdu,” he said.